50 States of Mind
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2024
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Every summer, 50 of the nation’s best and brightest teenage girls gather in Mobile, Alabama, to embark on two of the most intense weeks of their lives. Everybody wants the same thing: to walk away with a $40,000 college scholarship and the title of Distinguished Young Woman of America.
Reporter Shima Oliaee competed for Nevada when she was a teenager, and was invited back as a judge more than 20 years later. Oliaee accepted, all while recording it for a six-part audio series called The Competition.
In the final days of the competition, there was news from Washington that had big implications for women across the nation: Roe v. Wade had fallen.
The girls are faced with a tough decision: Do they speak up for their political beliefs or stay focused on winning the money? And what might this mean for their futures—and their friendships?
“This series changed how I view America,” Oliaee said. “I came away from it thinking, damn. American teen girls are the canaries in the coal mine.”
This week, Reveal is partnering with The Competition podcast, from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios and hosted by Oliaee, to explore the dreams of young women, America’s promise, and what it takes to survive being a teen girl today.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, hey, hey, it's Al, and if you value our show, now's the perfect time to show it. |
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| 0:39.5 | give to 88887 Reveal. That's 88857-382. Or visit RevealNews.org slash 2025. And thanks. |
| 0:56.0 | For more than 50 years, Ipass has been working around the world to protect reproductive freedom, particularly access to abortion, no matter who, no matter where, because these are fundamental human rights. |
| 1:10.3 | When abortion is available, accessible, |
| 1:13.1 | and affordable, people and communities thrive. But a vocal, global anti-rights minority is bent on |
| 1:21.2 | taking away our freedom to decide our own future. Join us in the fight to protect it. Visit IPAS.org slash reveal. That's IPAS.org |
| 1:33.8 | slash reveal. From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Lentzen. |
| 1:42.4 | Okay, I'm officially almost late to the airport. |
| 1:45.9 | It's an early summer morning in 2022. |
| 1:49.0 | Reporter Shima Oliai is rushing out of her apartment in New York City to get to the airport. |
| 1:55.8 | I'm still at home and I'm packing up jewelry on top of all this. I don't know, |
| 2:02.6 | man. This is a lot. |
| 2:04.7 | Hi, that was the 5 a.m. |
| 2:06.9 | Bell. She makes it to |
| 2:08.4 | JFK, but... |
| 2:10.4 | Hi. Hey, so I missed |
... |
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